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EPHRAIM HARDCASTLE: Lord Snowdon was heartbroken over Princess Margaret’s auction
David Linley and his sister Sarah broke the heart of their father, Lord Snowdon, when they sold 800 of Princess Margaret’s possessions at auction four years after her death in 2006. In 2017, as “crushed because her children sold the Tiara Poltimore, which Margaret wore when she married him, for £926,400.” “This Christies auction was heartbreaking for Lord Snowdon,” says his friend, Viscountess Hinchingbrooke. “In fact, she wrote to his children asking them to stop him.” David, now Lord Snowdon, and Lady Sarah Chatto raised nearly £14 million, but did not take all the loot. The late queen, also angered by the liquidation, ordered that the proceeds of any official gifts to Margaret go to good causes.
David Linley and his sister Sarah broke the heart of their father, Lord Snowdon, when they sold 800 of Princess Margaret’s possessions at auction four years after her death in 2006.
King Charles has been put in an awkward position by the Royal College of Nursing’s pay battle with the Government. Her mother was patron of the College until her death, replacing Queen Mary. The College then was less militant, opposing the TUC’s 1935 attempt to obtain a maximum 48-hour working week and describing the 1941 proposal for a guaranteed £40 nurses’ wage as too high. The College might hope that Charles or Camilla to replace the late Queen, but naming a royal figurehead at this point could be tricky.
Appearing on Radio 4’s Today show after Nick Robinson’s interview with Michael Gove, American rapper and Public Enemy frontman Chuck D, pictured, admits he doesn’t know who Michael Gove is. “I’m still reeling from the fact that you haven’t heard of Michael Gove, Chuck,” Robinson meows. Reminiscing about Gove (actually a Chuck D fan) once clumsily performing an amateur rap for the students at school, Robinson adds: ‘Poor Michael. Maybe you can teach him a lesson or two? Does anyone besides Nick think he’s a bottomless pit of thigh thumpers?
Appearing on Radio 4’s Today show after Nick Robinson’s interview with Michael Gove, American rapper and Public Enemy frontman Chuck D, pictured, admits he doesn’t know who Michael Gove is.
Prince Harry’s memoirs confirm that Archie was conceived at Castle Mey as speculated here four years ago. There hasn’t been a royal birth north of the border since 1930, when Princess Margaret was born at Glamis Castle. But Archie has the distinction of being the only known famous child conceived under a royal Scottish roof since Leo Blair was the product of Tony and Cherie having a frisky night at Balmoral in 1999.
Ex-Conservative minister Lord Vaizey mocks Good Morning Britain co-host Ed Balls, cheekily commenting, “I have the only unsigned copy of Ed’s autobiography on my bookshelves.” Balls snorts: “Since it sold for tens of thousands… I didn’t sign tens of thousands.” Vaizey clarifies: ‘I’m just kidding you’. Children!
The superbly hot-tempered historian Paul Johnson, having invited Time magazine’s Richard Stengel to his Bayswater home in the 1980s, answered ‘I don’t know’ to every question and then left without explanation. Stengel waited 15 minutes, searched the ground floor, yelling ‘Hello?’, and gave up. ‘I yelled ‘Goodbye!’ he remembered. And then he closes the front door behind me. Will we see something similar to Paul again?